


Gold and Green

by Just_Another_Day



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Auguste (Captive Prince) Lives, Crushes, F/M, Friendship, Jealousy, M/M, Referenced Future Relationship, Rivalry, Scheming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 16:08:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18607939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_Another_Day/pseuds/Just_Another_Day
Summary: Jokaste can see the writing on the wall. But that doesn't mean she can't erase it and write her own story there instead.





	Gold and Green

They exited the ring side by side, both still managing to somehow look relatively regal despite being coated liberally in the sweat of exertion and a fine layering of dust. Damen was slapping Prince Auguste on the armour that covered his back. Both of them were grinning openly. 

One would think from the way they behaved so casually towards each other – like they were actually _friends_ – that it wasn't mostly just a matter of luck that they were able to waste their time play-fighting when they could have just as easily been actively at war with each other. Jokaste thought that they would be even luckier if that didn't all change soon enough.

"Yeah, yeah. Enjoy it while you can," Damen was saying. "I'll definitely beat you outright the next time we fight."

"I'll believe that when I see it," Auguste gibed back good-naturedly.

"Hey, don't try to act like it wasn't close. I almost had you."

"You _thought_ you did, sure."

Jokaste's manners were carefully cultivated enough that she managed to restrain herself from rolling her eyes at their ridiculous posturing. But just barely. 

A lesser woman in her position might have spoken up to interrupt them or cleared her throat so their attention would inevitably shift in her direction despite how caught up in each other they seemed at that moment. Jokaste didn't need to do anything so crass. She knew how to hold herself to silently direct their eyes her way.

"Jokaste," Damen greeted the moment he spotted her, the playfully challenging grin he'd been directing at the Veretian Prince transitioning almost seamlessly into a warm smile. 

By contrast, beside him, Auguste's expression seemed to flatten slightly.

"Lady Jokaste. You must have missed the end of the fight to have so quickly made it down here from the top of the stands," Auguste commented mildly. "I hope we weren't boring you."

"Oh no, I was riveted," Jokaste lied. She hid her sarcasm better than Auguste hid his.

"You don't have to pretend," Damen said. To Auguste, he added, "Jokaste prefers verbal sparring to tournaments."

"Sounds like Laurent," said Auguste.

"Yes. They have enough in common that I would almost have suggested they might get along. But I've seen for myself that Laurent doesn't hold anyone whose name isn't 'Auguste' in positive regard," Damen said.

Honestly, Jokaste silently scoffed. Trust Damen not to notice how much the brat had been desperately vying for _his_ attention ever since the Veretians had arrived in Ios a week earlier. Jokaste could only imagine that it must have been much the same when Damen had journeyed to Vere a few times in summers past. She pictured the little irritant of a prince – a little smaller back then, but probably no less annoying – trailing along at Damen's heels through the halls of Arles without Damen even noticing he was there. Pathetic.

And speaking of the pest in question…

"Are you just letting Auguste win at this point?" Prince Laurent directed at Damen as he half-leapt down the last couple of stairs leading down from the observation stands. He seemed a little short of breath. Unlike Jokaste, he'd surely remained up in the royal box avidly watching the duel right up until its end, and then rushed down here to like an over-excited child.

"Should I be insulted that you think I'd need him to throw the fight to come out victorious?" Auguste asked, not sounding insulted in the least to Jokaste's ears.

"I didn't say you _needed_ it. But I can't believe Damianos just dropped his sword like that at the end." 

"If I'd held on, I'd have walked away with a sprained wrist," Damen defended himself. "And how many times have I told you that you can call me Damen?" 

Laurent's shrug was unexpectedly elegant for someone with such gangly still-growing limbs. "Clearly not often enough to convince me. Yet."

Jokaste narrowed her eyes ever so slightly at the boy. She was aware that Auguste used Damen's small name, but they had years of supposed 'friendship' between them. Laurent was nothing to Damen but Auguste's younger brother, and a foreign prince who would likely never rise to the power of a king. Any connection (or affection) there was entirely one-sided on Laurent's part. Or so Jokaste had assumed. But here Damen was offering him an intimacy that few were afforded, and apparently not for the first time.

Jokaste didn't like that at all.

"So tell me," Damen challenged Laurent, "if you think I did so badly against your brother, what would you have done differently?"

"Looking for inside tips?" Laurent asked. "You might try training more. It seems like you need it."

"Perhaps you'll spar against me yourself one of these days, then, if you think I need the practice," Damen challenged. "Shall I have them announce the fight now? Don't worry, I'll give you time to be fitted for armour. Assuming there's any on hand small enough for you."

Laurent's face was reddened. "I'm not that small," he pointed out. Clearly the message he wanted to get across was 'I wish you wouldn't see me as a child'.

"No one is interested in watching such an uneven fight; it would hardly be entertaining. And I can only imagine the Veretians' outrage if you knocked their little Prince into the dirt." Jokaste emphasised the word 'little' primarily to rub it in, to Laurent's very apparent annoyance. But it also had the added benefit of hopefully cementing the idea of Laurent still being just a child into Damen's mind. 

Jokaste wasn't an idiot. She knew what Damen liked, both physically and in terms of personality. He might enjoy his sweet and pliable slaves and his brainless muscle-bound gladiators well enough for them to keep his interest for a little while, but there was a reason someone like Jokaste had remained in his bed for far longer than anyone else, to the point that most people were beginning to speculate that she would ultimately remain there indefinitely. Jokaste had always been able to give off the impression of being something of a challenge, and held the obvious distinction of being unlike anyone else Damen had met so far.

But this brat with his impossibly blue eyes and his golden hair paired with a barbed tongue and no hesitation in speaking his mind to Damen, when Damen was used to everyone bowing so easily to his higher status… well. Jokaste could already see that the only thing stopping Laurent from matching up to Damen's ideals in every way was his age. Damen had met him as a boy of probably twelve or thirteen, and Damen clearly had yet to transition out of that mindset of seeing him as a child even several years later. But that particular problem would be cured in a year or two when they met again, after the shift towards manhood had become so obvious that even Damen could no longer manage to ignore what was staring him in the face. 

Jokaste knew exactly how it would go then. Especially if their next meeting was in Vere like most of the previous ones, where they would be hundreds of miles away from Jokaste and well outside her ability to easily manipulate events in her own favour.

Jokaste had no intention of just waiting passively for that day. Of giving up what she wanted just like that. A year or two could be a relatively long time in the scheme of things. A lot could happen in that period. If the right person were to nudge things along in a certain direction, that was.

"I'm sure your father is looking for you by now," Jokaste reminded Damen in an effort to separate him from the other princes.

Damen sighed. "You're right. I'd better not keep him waiting. Though at least Father is likely to pretend he's not disappointed that I didn't win the fight. It's Kastor's reaction I'm really dreading. He'll be teasing me about this for months, probably."

Kastor would be pretending as well, unless Jokaste was very mistaken about him (and she was rarely mistaken about anyone). It was just that Kastor would be pretending that he _wasn't_ actually deeply glad that Damen had lost, and simultaneously that he wasn't annoyed and jealous that Prince Auguste had managed to defeat Damen in a fight where Kastor himself no longer could.

Jokaste suspected that Kastor probably wished that Auguste had done more than knock Damen's sword out of his hand, come to that.

Jokaste wondered whether that knowledge might be useful to her.

Jokaste's ponderings were interrupted by Laurent's annoying voice piping up a little too eagerly with: "But we'll see you again once you're done with your father, right?" 

Damen grinned. "Of course. You can't get rid of me that easily." He reached out and ruffled Laurent's hair, the way one might do to a younger brother. He'd probably seen Auguste do the same thing. Laurent looked annoyed by the treatment on the surface, but Jokaste didn't miss the mixture of shock and tentative pleasure in his eyes. That was probably the most open affection Damen had ever shown him, even if it wasn't precisely the type he wanted. Laurent probably thought it was progress.

Not if Jokaste had any say in it, though.

She could make sure that Laurent didn't manage to plant any seeds that Jokaste didn't want him to in Damen's mind for the remainder of the Veretians' stay in Ios. And then once they were gone, she would start planning how to deal with this more long-term.

Nothing was going to get in the way of Jokaste fully establishing her position and her power.


End file.
